The United States, along with many countries in the world, relies on a first-come first-served basis for organizing people's behavior in society. First-come, first-served simply means that an earlier requester for a service or product will receive that service or product before any subsequent requestor. This concept is alternatively called queuing, with queuing being the process of 1) aligning requests first to last and then 2) servicing a request in the order received. First-come, first-served works well in organizing society's behavior except when someone either ignores or intentionally violates these informal rules. Nowhere is the first-come, first-served rule more likely to break down as it is in a point-of-sale activity.
A point-of-sale activity is a consumer activity where an individual desires to purchase a particular good or service. Some examples are: waiting at a service counter at the local hardware store, waiting to pay at a bank or department store customer service center, or waiting to purchase gasoline. Point-of-sale also includes using unattended machines such as those in laundromats, car washes, and other facilities using vending machines. Point-of-sale machines also include gaming devices such as pool tables, pinball machines and video poker machines.
For attended point-of-sale activities, retailers often resorted to the "take-a-number" system. In such a system, for example, a person approaches a centralized repository of numbers, retrieves the next available number, and waits until that number is called or displayed. Consumers who approached the counter earlier have lower numbers and therefore are called for service prior to this person's number. Consumers approaching later have a higher number, so they will be called after this person is called. Such systems work well but require an attendant or clerk to monitor and assure the system is properly implemented and enforced.
Vending machines present a more difficult problem for the first-come, first-served rule. Since there is generally no attendant or clerk, individual consumers must rely on the honesty and integrity of the others desiring the same service or product. Unfortunately, others often misinterpret, misunderstand or accidently misapply the first-come, first-served rule, resulting in heightened tensions and dissatisfied consumers.
A particular type of point-of-sale vending system is a gaming system such as pool tables. These systems are often present in recreational environments such as lounges, sports bars, nightclubs and other recreational centers. Such environments are often loud and confusing, thus contributing to the failure of people to successfully apply the first-come, first-served rule. For example, the game of pool is often started by inserting quarters into a money slot, activating the drop of balls that begins a game. Only one game may be played at a time with no method of queuing built into the pool gaming system. Therefore, in an environment where several people wish to play pool, those desiring to participate will place their quarters on the rail of the pool table or write their name on a chalkboard and await their turn. After the current game ends, someone will (hopefully) announce that the game is over. The persons having quarters nearest the money slot or who are next on the chalkboard will insert their quarters and begin the next game. Unfortunately, in this often confused and active environment participants forget whose quarters are next or may intentionally try to advance their order. Such behavior results in heightened tensions and sometimes even violence.
It is, therefore, the object of the present invention to provide an easy-to-use device and method for sequencing point-of-sale activities, including vending machine activities such as pool.